Headstone for soldier placed

A headstone honoring a Confederate soldier was placed at Tucumcari Memorial Park Cemetery on Sept. 7 — nearly a century after his death.

Kenneth Glaze, an employee of Glaze Monument Company in Clovis, placed the military marker for Alfred Shelby.

Shelby served in the Confederate Army as a sergeant in Company F of the 34th Texas Cavalry.

Shelby died and was buried in Tucumcari in September 1914.

His great-great-granddaughter, Donna Scott, of Billings, Mont., had made a trip to Tucumcari to visit his grave in April.

“I had some difficulty locating his gravesite,” Scott said, “because he had no headstone.”

Scott said Janelle Foster, president of the United Daughters of Confederacy, Ellen W. Jones Chapter, in Portales, contacted Scott about holding a ceremony at the gravesite honoring Shelby’s memory.

Scott said she contacted Shelby’s great-granddaughter in Santa Fe, who sent her a picture of Shelby, his wife and eight children. She said the great-granddaughter will also attend a ceremony scheduled for July.

“I was so excited to finally have a picture of my great-great-grandfather,” Scott said. “I am trying to contact all of his descendants to invite them to the ceremony (next summer).”

Scott said came to know Shelby as her great-great-grandfather through stories passed down to her by relatives.

“After my grandfather’s father died,” Scott said, “Shelby stepped up as a father figure to him.”

Scott contacted the Veterans Affairs to see if her great-great-grandfather qualified for a veteran’s headstone.

“Veterans have the right to be honored, no matter what war they fought in” Scott said.